HANG TIME NEW JERSEY — At the midway point of the season, the Portland Trail Blazers were just a game behind the San Antonio Spurs for the top spot in the Western Conference.

The Blazers went 23-18 from then on, winning nine of their last 10 games. But that wasn’t good enough to even secure home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. The Houston Rockets went 25-11 to close the season and edge Portland for the 4 seed.

This is a matchup of two of the top five offenses in the league and two franchises that have just one playoff series win in the last 13 years.

12 Comments

The Blazers are a dangerous team when they give it a full 48. And yes, Harden is a huge flopper; he’s worse than Derrick Fisher. If LaMarcus Aldridge brings his A-game, it may be tough for Houston. It definitely won’t be a walk in the park.

The blazers showed us that their starting 5 can match up with anyone when they are healthy. LA may be the best back to the basket player in the league and their three point shooting is great. The Blazers depth is a problem and that will, most likely, be why they don’t make it to the western conference finals.

The Rockets are a team that seem to be able to beat anyone when they don’t beat themselves. I have seem them look unbeatable against the best teams in the league and look disorganized at other times. If they can “turn it on” in the playoffs, they have the best shot of any team outside of the top three going to the championship series.

The Blazers need to keep the ball moving and penetrate and dish. It is imperative that when DAM and the other starters are getting their rest that our bench shoots the ball well. I think one of the big factors will be whether or not our bigs (LOPEZ and THOMAS ROBINSON) can put up some big numbers. Also, our team needs to be aggressive and realize when their 3’s aren’t falling to take it to the paint and draw contact. Defensively, MATHEWS needs to body up on HARDEN and get him frustrated. I’m not too worried about DWIGHT HOWARD and think that our bigs will do fine. The sneaky player I am worried about for houston is PARSONS and BATUM should be on him like glue. LIN and BEVERLY can’t match up against our players and oh yeah don’t forget we have ALDRIGE. He is going to destroy the ROCKETS this series. I got my money on PORTLAND in five games.

It seems to me if the Blazers play their starters most of the game and don’t get into foul trouble, they win. Its that part that says “Blazer starters outscored Houstons starters by +36”. The problem with Portland in the games against Houston this year, is they used the bench too much. That won’t happen in the playoffs.

Nice comment. It’s a very tough one but you are right. If the starters from Portland stay out of foul-trouble they can probably win it. But with Harden penetrating the paint all night long it is going to be very hard for them (flopping or not). It would mean that Portland cannot hack Dwight too to get him on the line. Letting them both walk is asking for trouble. So some tough decisions to be made here by the Blazers. I think the bench & time out strategy are going to be crucial in this series.

Harden is the biggest flopper in the league. I hope the refs don’t decide this great match-up of Dame/Beverley and Wes/Harden. Should be a great series and Dwight is gonna be hard to stop unless he stops himself with stupid fouls.